Requiem (5 page)

“Of course he didn’t know her,” said Mrs Deedham. “He’d never seen her before in his life.”

The little boy in Deedham’s arms began to struggle. His father put him down on the floor, and he immediately ran over to a box of toys in the corner of the room and began throwing them aside, clearly searching for a particularly loved one. The officers exchanged glances. The time for questioning was obviously at an end. They got to their feet.

“So what do you think?” asked Olbeck as they drove back to the station.

Anderton was driving. Technically, his work status warranted a driver
, but Kate had noticed that he always preferred to drive himself. He liked to be in control.

He shrugged and made an indeterminate noise.

“I don’t know. There’s nothing about his statement that doesn’t add up but…I don’t know.”

“I know what you mean,” said Kate. “He’s very defensive.”

“It’s not so much that.” He slowed the car for a T-junction, glancing at her in the rear view mirror. “There’s something about him I don’t like. I can’t put my finger on it. It may be important—then again, it may not.”

“Should we talk to his wife?” asked Kate. “See if she says anything that, well, doesn’t quite tally?”

Anderton pondered. “Yes. But it’s lower priority at the moment than the other interviews. We start at Rawlwood College tomorrow, nine sharp.” They were approaching the station. He caught her eye again. “You talked to your brother yet?”

“Not yet, sir, sorry,” said Kate, adequately disguising the drop of her stomach. “I haven’t been able to get hold of him. I’ll try again once I’m back at my desk.”

C
hapter Six

Kate called it a night at nine thirty that evening. She said goodbye to Olbeck, still hunched over his keyboard, and let herself out of the office, raising a hand to the duty sergeant on the front desk as she left the building.

Settled in the
driver’s seat, she checked her phone before she drove off. Nothing from Jay. Where the hell was he? She’d now left him three messages. Trying not to worry, she put the key in the ignition, locked her driver side door and drove off.

 
Kate’s new house was situated at the end of a terrace of Victorian buildings at the end of a cul-de-sac. The last streetlight lay twenty feet from her garden gate, meaning her walk up the path to the front door was always slightly nerve-wracking after dark.
I must get an outside light
, she told herself yet again, knowing she’d forget about it once she was through the front door.

As she opened the squeaky little iron gate to the path up to the door, a dark shadow moved. A hand reached for her.
There was a moment of cold terror and her hand holding the front door keys came up like a flash; they were a tiny weapon, but it could be the difference between life and death…

S
he let out her breath in a half-scream as she realised it was her brother.

“Jay, you idiot, you scared the absolute shit out of me!”

Jay said nothing. He stood there, dumbly, shaking his head. Kate could smell the booze on him from three feet away.

“Are you all right?”

He finally spoke. “No, I’m not,” he said, in a slurred and teary mumble. “Sis, I’m so not okay. I didn’t want to scare you, I didn’t know where to go—”

Kate had the front door open now and the hallway light on. She
gently pushed Jay into her house before her and turned him to face her. He looked awful: unshaven, red-eyed, hair unbrushed and greasy.

“You’ve heard about Elodie,” she said
. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” said Jay and burst into tears.

She let him cry, leading him to the sofa and wrapping him up in one of the blankets she kept there. Then she made him a cup of hot chocolate, listening to his sobs gradually tapering off, like a toy winding down. By the time he’d drunk his hot drink, he was dry-eyed again, his chest only occasionally heaving.

“I’m really sorry, Jay,” said Kate eventually. “It’s awful. You must be feeling desperate.”

Jay’s mouth crimped. For a moment, she thought he was going to start crying again, but he managed to control himself.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. He lean
ed forward and put the mug down on the floor with a shaking hand. “I can’t believe it. She was so amazing. Why would anyone do this?”

Kate could only shake her head.

“It shouldn’t have happened!” he cried and then buried his face in his hands, sobbing. Kate was reminded of Mr Duncan at the morgue, saying almost those very words.

“Jay,” she said gently, after a moment. “We’ll need to take a statement from you. I can’t do it myself but Mark
—you remember Mark?—he can do it for you. You can come to the station with me tomorrow.”

Jay shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t want to have everyone laughing at me for crying
, and I can’t talk about Elodie without crying.” He wiped his face. “I can’t, sis.”

Kate picked the empty mug from the floor.

“We’ll talk about in the morning,” she said, before remembering that she had to be at Rawlwood College for the first round of interviews. “Actually, I’ve got to go out early. You sleep in, have a shower, have some breakfast. We’ll talk later when I get back.”

 
When she was finally in bed, she lay wide-eyed in the darkness, staring up at the dim ceiling. She wondered whether Jay was lying awake in the next bedroom too. She hoped not. She rolled on her side, pulling the duvet up to her ear. She hoped she wouldn’t dream, but she could sense that the riverbank and the mud and Elodie’s white face were lying in wait for her, out there in the dark.

*

“You look as bad as I do,” said Olbeck the next morning when he knocked on Kate’s door. “Don’t tell me you went on a wild bender when you left the office last night.”

“I could make a smart remark about that, coming from you,” said Kate as she flopped into the passenger seat. “And I won’t even start on the ‘bender
.’”

Olbeck laughed. “So how come you look so rough?”

“I’m not that bad, am I?” Kate flipped down the visor to look in the little mirror and groaned. “Crap. Where’s my hairbrush?”

As she brushed her hair, she told Olbeck what had happened last night.

“Poor kid,” said Olbeck. “I’ll do his statement.”

“I told him you would,” said Kate. She
tied back her now-neat hair. “I obviously can’t do it myself, and he needs someone to be—well—gentle with him.”

Olbeck glanced over at her. “Did he say anything about the night she died? Did he see anything?”

Kate dropped her hairbrush back into her bag and snapped it shut.

“He didn’t say,
” she said, shortly. “He wasn’t anywhere near her when I left that night, I know that.”

“All right, all right,” said Olbeck, peering through the windscreen. “You need to talk it through with Anderton later. Where’s the
bloody turn off for the College?”

The road they were travelling along ran along a high brick wall, ten feet tall. Olbeck spotted the turning
, and the car swung into the winding drive of Rawlwood. They drove along through a thin bank of trees before the open lawns of the College began, and the building loomed into view, huge and black in full Gothic splendour.

“My God,” said Kate, looking at the turrets and bell tower and
the mullioned windows. “It’s Hogwarts.”

“My school was a bit like this,” said Olbeck, slowing down to look.

“Wow. Mine definitely wasn’t.”

“Yes, well, don’t envy me,” said Olbeck. Kate was surprised at the bitterness in his voice. “Just because it looks fantastic on the surface doesn’t mean it was wonderful underneath.”

“True.” For a moment, Kate was going to ask Olbeck about his school days. He’d been to private school, she knew that, although she didn’t know the specific school he’d attended. He never talked about it.

Kate stared out the window as they approached the visitors
’ car park. There were little huddles of students here and there, walking back and forth between the buildings, all dressed in the navy and silver uniform: the same uniform worn by Elodie Duncan in the photograph pinned to the crime room whiteboard. Several carried musical instruments in cases. One tiny, redheaded girl was struggling along with a case that was almost bigger than she was. As Kate watched, a grey-haired man, clearly one of the teachers, intercepted her and lifted the case from her small hands. The two of them walked off together, chatting, the case—was it a cello?—between them.

The two of them got out of the car. Kate stood, getting her bearings. It was difficult to know whether there was an unusual amount of activity because of what had happened to Elodie or whether this was just a normal day at
Rawlwood. It would be easier to ascertain once they’d spent some time here.

They found the school reception and were guided to the south wing of the school by a rather superior school secretary, who glided along in front of them, occasionally nodding from side to side and snapping out
descriptions such as ‘large common room,’ ‘bursar’s room,’ and ‘dining hall,’ as they swept past glimpses of wood-panelled rooms and lofty-ceilinged halls. She delivered them to a much less grand room furnished with a few odd tables and chairs. One of the chairs was occupied by Anderton, who was speed-reading through a pile of papers on the desk in front of him.

“Morning you two,” he said
without raising his head. Kate and Olbeck stood aside to allow the secretary to sweep back out of the room with an audible sniff.

“Did you get the impression we’re not welcome here?” murmured Olbeck.

Kate shrugged.

“We’re never welcome anywhere,” she said. “Morning, sir.”

Anderton pushed the chair back and stood up.

“Right,” he said, sweeping the papers away from him. “Now, here’s where we’ll start
—”

There was a commotion outside in the hallway, raised voices, a scrimmage of feet. Two seconds later
, a teenage girl came barrelling through the doorway, all long legs and a fall of long brown hair.

“Police
—are you the police?” she demanded breathlessly. Without waiting for an answer, she flung her school bag down onto the floor and raised both hands to her head, staring at the officers, wild-eyed. “I’ve got to talk to you, like, immediately. Are you the police?”

“Yes, we are,” said Kate, raising her hands in a ‘calm down’ gesture. “What’s the matter? Do you want to talk to us about
—”

“Elodie? Yes, of course I want to talk to you about Elodie! Or rather about
 
him
. I need to talk to you about 
him
!”

The officers looked at one another.

“Who are you talking about?”

The girl looked at them as though they were crazy. Worse, as if they were stupid.
“I’m talking about Reuben Farraday,” she said. Then she burst into tears. “He always said he’d kill her, and now he has!”

Chapter Seven

The three officers stood nonplussed for a moment. Then Kate stepped forward, raising her hands in a calming gesture once again. The girl was still sobbing wildly.

“Okay, okay,” soothed Kate. “Calm down. What’s your name?”

The girl turned out to be Amy Peters, the best friend that Elodie’s mother had mentioned. Kate led her to a chair and sat her down, rummaging in her bag for a clean tissue.

The girl only cried for a few
more minutes. Then she sat up, threw her hair away from her tear-stained face, and raised both hands to her temples as she took a few deep breaths. There was something stagy about her mannerisms, something not quite natural, as if she was exaggerating genuinely felt emotions. Perhaps she was. Hadn’t Mrs Duncan said something about Elodie and Amy having a falling-out?

“Miss Peters?” said Anderton. “Anything you can tell us will be helpful. You think Reuben Farraday had something to do with Elodie’s death?”

Amy stretched her eyes wide.

“Well, of
 
course
. He was a nightmare to Elodie, simply a nightmare. He used to threaten her 
regularly
.”

“In what way?”

Amy took a handful of hair and held it back from her head. Kate could tell that she was the kind of girl who used her hair as a form of punctuation: pulling it, twisting it, throwing it back to give emphasis to her words.

“Elodie and Reuben split up about six months
ago,” she said. “You know that, right? Ever since then—”

“Excuse me, Amy, but why did they split up? What was the reason?”

Amy gave her a look of scorn mixed with incredulity. She had all the superiority of the elite mixed with the ringing self-confidence of the average teenager. Kate was half amused, half annoyed.

“He was possessive,” Amy said dramatically. “
Extremely
possessive. Always wanting to know what she was doing and who she was with, never letting her have a moment’s peace. For God’s sake, she got enough of that at home. Reuben just couldn’t accept that she didn’t want to spend all her time with him, that she had other friends as well. He was a 
nightmare
.”

“Other friends? Did Elodie have other boyfriends as well? Is that what you mean?”

Amy stared, her lip curled. “
No
. She wasn’t 
unfaithful
. Of course not! She just didn’t want to spend all her free time with him, God, what little she had. She said she just felt completely suffocated by him, and so she dumped him.”

“When was this?”

“I told you. About six months ago. And ever since then, he’s been calling and texting and generally being a complete nightmare to her. He wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“Did her parents know about this?” asked Anderton.

Amy sniffed. “Not really. Elodie always said she could handle it. She didn’t believe he was actually serious.” For a second, her actressy manner departed, and she was just a young girl with tears in her eyes. Her voice shook a little. “She always said it was just words, that he didn’t mean anything by it. I feel awful because I believed her. I thought she knew what she was doing. And now it’s too late.”

She hung her head, the curtain of hair sweeping forward and hiding her face.

Olbeck cleared his throat. “What sort of threats did he make, Amy?”

There was no response from Amy for a moment. Kate saw a tear fall from underneath the curtain of hair onto the dusty floor.

“Amy?”

Amy sat up, throwing her hair back and wiping her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just very upset. Elodie was my
best friend
.”

“What sort of threats did Reuben make, Amy?” asked Olbeck, patiently.

“Terrible ones. When they first split up, he told her he’d kill her.”

“You heard him say that?”

“I 
saw
 it. On Facebook. He deleted it a few hours later, though.”

“Did you ever see him physically threaten or assault Elodie?”

Amy pouted. “No, not as such. He used to hang around sometimes and try and talk to her when we got out of class. God, he was such a 
stalker
. I don’t know why Elodie wasn’t more scared of him.” Her big blue eyes filled up with tears again. “She should have been. Look what happened.”

“Right, Amy, thank you,” said Anderton. He put a hand under the girl’s arm and helped her up. “DS Olbeck will take a full statement from you now
, and you can rest assured we will be questioning Mr Farraday very closely and very soon.”

Amy sniffed again and tucked her hair behind her ears. She bent to pick up her school bag.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, tucking the strap over her shoulder. “First Violet and now this. I sometimes feel this school is 
cursed
.”

Olbeck led her away to a desk in the corner. Anderton and Kate exchanged glances and Kate cast up her eyes very slightly.

“Teenage girls,” she said quietly.

Anderton looked suddenly grim.

“Don’t remind me,” he said. “I’ve got two of my own.”

“What about Farraday?”

“I think it’s about time we pulled him in, don’t you?”

“Should I
—”

Anderton was already reaching for his jacket. He shook his head.
“I need you supervising things here, Kate. I’ll handle it. Start working through this list.”

“Okay,” muttered Kate, dissatisfied. She would rather be out there, taking action, pulling in what sounded like their prime suspect, rather than taking statements from a lot of overly dramatic, snobby students in here. She chastised herself
,
Come on, this is important too
. She watched Anderton leave and turned back to see Amy swishing her hair back yet again in the corner. Her teeth clenched with irritation. Then Kate suddenly realised she’d missed something. She walked over to where Olbeck was taking Amy’s statement and waited for an appropriate pause.

“Amy,” she said, when she could. “What did you mean by what you said just
a moment ago?”

Amy looked at her, wide-eyed.
“What do you mean?”

“You said something about the school being cursed. What was that again?”

Amy looked a little ashamed of her dramatic phrase. “Oh, nothing. It was just after what happened to Violet last year—”

“That was it,” said Kate. She picked up a chair and joined them at the desk. “What did you mean by that? Who’s Violet?”

Amy curled a lock of hair around her fingers, rubbing it against her lips.

“Violet Sammidge,” she said, in a small voice. “Don’t you remember? She committed suicide last year.”

Olbeck and Kate looked at one another.

“I think I remember that,” said Olbeck. “In fact, I do remember that. Very sad. She was a pupil here, wasn’t she?”

Amy nodded. “We were both in the drama group. She was younger than me, and that’s how we met, in drama. She hanged herself in the cloakrooms. It was awful.”

“It must have been,” said Olbeck. He was looking at Kate in a familiar way. They never asked each other ‘is that important?’ in front of suspects or witnesses
, but she had got to know the look he gave her when he was thinking it. So she got up smartly, thanked Amy and went back to her desk.

It was a long day. Kate interviewed a seemingly endless line of teenage boys and girls and several of Elodie’s teachers. Her music teacher, Graham Lightbody, she recognised as the grey-haired man who’d helped the tiny girl carry the huge cello case. He was a soft-spoken, urbane man, given to thoughtful pauses; he took his time to reflect on her questions before answering in measured tones. He too spoke about how special Elodie had been.

“We have a lot of students here with talent, Detective Sergeant. People expect to come to
Rawlwood because we nurture the best students. Elodie Duncan was very good. Not the best we’ve had, I couldn’t say that, but I fully expected her to make a great career for herself in the arts.”

Kate nodded.

“People with great talent aren’t always very happy,” she said. “Did Elodie strike you as a happy person? Do you think she was generally content?”

Lightbody smiled. “She was a teenage girl, Detective Sergeant. You’re not very old yourself. Surely you can remember being a teenage girl?”

Kate forced a smile. She would be quite happy for most of her teenage years to be wiped from her memory.
No you wouldn’t
, whispered a voice.
You wouldn’t want to forget him
. As if there was any chance of
that
. She sighed inwardly before turning her attention back to the interview.

“What do you know of Elodie’s ex-boyfriend, Reuben Farraday?”

Lightbody raised his eyebrows. “I’m afraid I know nothing of him. He wasn’t a pupil here.”

“You weren’t aware of any threats he’d made against Elodie? Any threatening or violent behaviour?”

“Dear me, no. Not at all. Is he a suspect in her death?”

Kate didn’t answer him.

“Did Elodie ever seem scared of anybody?”

“No. Not that I knew. But I’m afraid, Detective Sergeant,
that I didn’t know her very well. She was a beautiful, talented girl, but as to what she was like as a person, I couldn’t say.”

Kate nodded. After a few more questions, she brought the interview to a close, thanked Dr Lightbody for his time and handed over her card. Once he’d left the room, she looked over at Olbeck, who was busy writing up the first of many reports.

“That’s me done for the day.”

Olbeck clicked his pen closed with a flourish.

“Me too. Let’s head back and see how Anderton’s getting along with young Mr Farraday.”

“You read my mind.”